Lindsay: Age Gaps and Nursing

Lindsay Reed Maines is a mother
of three, wife to a touring rock bassist, blogger, social media consultant, and
journalist. Lindsay’s work has appeared in The Washington Post and Brain,Child
Magazine, as well as many business trade publications.

She's the chair of ONE's Mom Advocacy
Committee, and serves on the advisory boards of The Gilt Groupe and Care.com.

I had my first child in 1996. It’s 15 years ago,
but it feels even longer. I was a 21-year-old single mom, and sure of very few
things- except that I wanted to breastfeed my son.

I had been adopted as an infant by wonderful
parents, and my mom was very supportive of my decision, though the mechanics of
the process were unfamiliar to her. That was important, because I was living
with my folks while finishing college. She ran countless bottles of water to
me, as we wondered could he POSSIBLY still be hungry. Because he was born at
nine pounds, two ozs, it felt like a round the clock process to keep him full.

But I plugged away, and was rewarded by a sense
of confidence in caring for this new creature. We kept up our nursing
relationship until he was two and a half.

Then, one day, he fell down in the driveway, and
I unclasped my bra as usual- he looked at me as though he were completely
baffled by what I could possibly be offering. Shook his head three times, ran
away, and never nursed again.

He was seven before I had another baby. When my
daughter was born, another nursing relationship began. Jack seemed to take it
in stride, as though some distant memory echoed in his mind of being in the
same boat.

I logged many hours in the same glider rocker
from seven years before. My daughter, though only a seven pounder, nursed just
as much as her older brother, and for me, it felt like riding a bike. Her
infancy flew by, and when she was eighteen months old, we found out she would
have company- another baby was on the way.

She continued to nurse through my pregnancy, and
for the most part, it wasn’t an issue. There were times I felt like there was a
surplus of physical contact, between being kicked in the ribs by an inside baby
and in such demand from an outside baby. But it was important to me to give her
as much time as possible to quit on her own terms.

When our next son was born, he was a six-pound
bundle of joy. He took to nursing with the same avidity of his predecessors,
and my daughter continued as well. Until the third week, when she came down
with Hand, Foot and Mouth disease. Though it was crucial to me she didn’t feel
forced out by the new baby, because of the high contagion risk, I had to cut
her off. She was old enough to understand spoken language, and took the
conversation very well.

She still tried a few times afterward, but was
cooperative when I explained that we were all done with nursing- I felt
somewhat guilty for ousting her, but happy that we got past her second
birthday.

The third baby put in just as many hours in the
rocker as his brother and sister. He nursed into his toddlerhood, and, with the
hullabaloo of three kids, I don’t remember when he quit. I know he made it past
his second birthday, and then…we were just done. That phase of my life ended,
and, three years later, it seems even more distant in the rear view mirror.
When my kids see other nurslings, they say, “Look, mom! I used to do that!”